Here are two newspapers that published infographics on the damaged reactors of the Japanese nuclear plant:

I believe that this is an in-depth and informative infographic that really gives the reader a sense of how these machines are supposed to work and how they were affectedby the earthquake. However, it’s very scientific and not eye-catching. There’s a lot of text here. Also, as interesting as learning about the parts of a nuclear plant is, I’m more interested in how the fires and leaking radiation have affected the region and the people.

This infographic does a better job of drawing me in immediately. I like getting an imagein my mind about where this plant is and the distance between reactors. This paper allows me to see the size of the region thats been affected. That’s a large space. I also like the day by day approach, also in the graphic from the WSJ. I feel more emotionally from this graphic than I do from the WSJ graphic. The WSJ infographic is so technical that the impactfor me is lost.

There are parts I like about both of these. If one could combine the technical information from the Wall Street Journal with the image from the Bakersfield, I think that’d make the perfect infographic. (Maybe without the dry cleaning ad).